NPR's Michel Martin asks Abbas Milani, director of Iranian Studies at Stanford, why more Iranians are fleeing their country and whether there's a realistic path to end the U.S.-Iran war. For more on why so many Iranians want to leave the country, we've called Abbas Milani. He is the director of Iranian studies at Stanford University.
Milani, thank you so much for speaking with us. MARTIN: You left Iran in the '80s, but you still have many friends there. What are they telling you about what their lives are like right now?
MILANI: I think what they're telling me is that it's a life of despair and life of failure of hope. The economy is putting pressure on everybody. There's anxiety about possible shortages if the war continues, if the embargo continues.
You have to get a sense of the falling value of the currency. The value of the currency has gone, within this war period, this last few months, from 120,000 Persian toman to $1 to now close to 200,000. And everybody expects that value to further collapse.
MARTIN: So to what extent is leaving Iran an option? MILANI: It's not an option. Nobody leaves their homeland willingly.
They leave it when it is despair, when there is no hope. The new appointments that allegedly Mr. Khamenei has made has brought to fore some of the most infamous, brutal leaders of the past.
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